{"id":27974,"date":"2025-08-28T04:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/27974\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T04:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:19:08","slug":"school-secretaries-and-caretakers-to-begin-indefinite-strike-after-talks-fail-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/27974\/","title":{"rendered":"School secretaries and caretakers to begin indefinite strike after talks fail \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">More than 2,300 school secretaries at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/primary-level\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/primary-level\/\">primary<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/second-level\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/second-level\/\">secondary schools<\/a> and 500 caretakers are to begin an indefinite strike on Thursday after talks at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/workplace-relations-commission\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/workplace-relations-commission\/\">Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) failed to resolve a dispute over pensions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Representatives of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/forsa\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/forsa\/\">F\u00f3rsa<\/a> trade union left the WRC on Wednesday evening after the meeting was arranged to avoid strike action. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The dispute is in relation to secretaries and caretakers\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/work\/2025\/08\/26\/written-guarantee-on-pensions-needed-by-school-secretaries-and-caretakers-to-avoid-strike\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/work\/2025\/08\/26\/written-guarantee-on-pensions-needed-by-school-secretaries-and-caretakers-to-avoid-strike\/\">exclusion from the public-service pension scheme<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The WRC was of the view that the basis for constructive negotiations was not apparent at this time despite exploring various options with the union and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-education\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/department-of-education\/\">Department of Education<\/a> which could enable meaningful engagement towards a resolution of the dispute. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The WRC is expected to continue to engage in the coming days and remains \u201cavailable to assist the parties in negotiating a mutually agreeable outcome\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It is understood about 2,000 schools nationwide will be affected by the action, which received a 98 per cent backing from union members.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Andy Pike, F&#xF3;rsa's head of education, speaking outside the WRC. Photograph: Sam Boal\/Collins\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DPGXFEBSZMWA3JXRFVY3LNV3WY.JPG\"   width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Andy Pike, F\u00f3rsa&#8217;s head of education, speaking outside the WRC. Photograph: Sam Boal\/Collins <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The department told school managers last week that every school is expected to open as usual, despite the disruption. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, this has been disputed by those involved and by unions and associations representing teachers and principals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 2,300 school secretaries at primary and secondary schools and 500 caretakers are to begin an indefinite&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,13264,18,13,14,13265,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,2987,22617,12551,7,8,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-27974","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-department-of-education","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-forsa","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-pension","24":"tag-primary-level","25":"tag-second-level","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories","28":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}